As great as it is to remove an old incandescent lightbulb from your living room and replace it with a new CFL bulb (or better yet, an LED), there is a much greater impact when a business replaces or retrofits on a much grander scale.
Ford Goes Green in Dearborn
Shortly after announcing its first electric car, the Electric Ford Focus, Ford announced on Friday it was going green with its Dearborn Michigan plant by replacing 50,000 light fixtures, and in doing so, eliminating 11,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions.
Benefits of Going Green at a Car Plant
In addition to saving a whopping amount of carbon emissions, Ford has also made their Dearborn, Michigan plant environmentally friendly in other ways. Besides changing out lightbulbs, they have also optimized the building’s use of daylight, and put “occupancy sensors” in places where there is low traffic, and lights do not have to be on all the time.
Saving Money by Going Green
Not only did Ford do a great service to the environment by cutting their CO2 emissions, they also reduced their costs for their Dearborn, Michigan plant significantly. Their ‘replace and retrofit’ campaign resulted in savings of $1.3 million for the company.
How Ford’s Initiative Can be Applied At Home
It’s not just large car companies who can implement savings like this. If you are a homeowner you can save on your electricity bills at home by replacing your incandescent bulbs with CFLs or LEDs, and making other energy efficient choices.
What do you think of Ford’s initiative, and should other car manufacturing plants follow suit? We think so!
